Ah, this essay was an interesting and thought-provoking one to read. My personal experience in the family realm is two-fold in a lot of respects: I have a wonderfully supportive mother and sister and other relatives/found family that I genuinely get along with so I have a lot of warm memories regarding family and the like...but I also have some relatives that I actively have to "hide" my true self from because they wouldn't understand (this ranges not only from just political viewpoints, but also because I am on the neurodivergence spectrum and have extreme OCD too) in order to keep the peace so to speak. This doesn't even cover my avoidance of my birth father, who I just kind of eventually had to cut out of my life due to how toxic the relationship ended up being (this was largely due to his own volition too, as he essentially considered the threat of disownment a proper punishment for even voicing frustrations). I suppose I can understand the messages in the films given that perspective, though I also liked how the family still accepted the individuals in Encanto ultimately and stayed together as a family regardless and I liked the more "middle ground" message found in Brave.

And...I have no idea whether or not this large ramble even makes a lick of sense, so I'll just stop here. XD Excellent essay though! ♥